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Video offers taste of Palisade peach history

Peach lovers can take a sumptuous bite from local history with a recently preserved, decades-old video outlining Palisade’s peach growing history.

The charming video produced in the late 1940s or 1950s details the area’s foray into peach production and includes a segment on the little-known stilt walkers who labored high in the treetops, thinning trees.

The 30-minute video “Colorado Peach” is available on the website for the Palisade Sunrise Rotary Club, Palisadecorotary.org.

Vicki Felmlee, president of the Palisade Sunrise Rotary club, said she remembered the stilt walkers performing in parades.

“They were always one of the most popular features,” Felmlee said in a press release for the movie.

The video also shows how ice ponds were created in the Eagle and Vail area to create ice to keep peaches fresher longer during their journey by railroad.

Officials with the Palisade Historical Society were interested in distributing the video online after people wanted to see it more widely distributed. The Palisade Sunrise Rotary Club asked officials in the visual communication department of Western Colorado Community College to format the video for YouTube, which they agreed to do, Felmlee said.

The video now can be viewed in large format versions for teachers to use in classrooms and for presentations.